We’re Launching the CC Open GLAM Program
jeudi 10 juin 2021 à 21:36Following our recent announcement of a major grant from Arcadia to advance open access at galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs), we’re excited to officially launch Creative Commons’ Open GLAM program. In this post, we share an overview of the program’s rationale and briefly introduce our key program areas.
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GLAMs’ public interest mission, rooted in the imperative to make their cultural heritage collections available to their users, is squarely aligned with the open access ethos. Indeed, making their collections as openly accessible, shareable, and reusable as possible is the best way for GLAMs to achieve their mission as they digitize and offer their collections online.
So, how come only a tiny fraction of the world’s GLAMs share their collections through open access initiatives? How come only a tiny fraction are reaping the benefits of open access and hence making a greater impact on the communities they serve through renewed conversations, interactions, and collaborations leading to novel interpretations and experiences? The answer, it seems, is that GLAMs face a host of barriers to embracing open access: from complex copyright rules to conservative institutional policies, practices and mindsets, all the way to financial constraints and concerns.
At Creative Commons, we want to help GLAMs overcome these barriers, because if they don’t, we will all miss out on the potential of open access to unlock universal access to knowledge and culture, pursuant to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. That’s why our new Open GLAM Program will build a coordinated global effort to help GLAMs make the content they steward openly available and reusable for the public good.
Informed by our 2021-2025 strategy and 20th anniversary campaign to ensure better sharing of knowledge and culture, our program is made up of four key components: (1) policy, (2) infrastructure, (3) capacity-building and consulting, and (4) community engagement. In a nutshell, our plans include:
On policy, we’ll work to reform the copyright system on a global level to bring it in line with the needs of GLAM institutions and allow them to conduct their legitimate activities; we’ll continue to insist that works in the public domain must remain in the public domain; we’ll encourage a purposeful policy discourse celebrating open culture as a positive affirmation of the importance of open access and sharing of cultural materials to the fullest extent possible; we’ll also engage in conversations on respectful and ethical use of culturally-sensitive materials.
On infrastructure, we’ll continue to steward our licenses and tools (especially our Public Domain Mark and Public Domain Dedication Tool) and see to it that they are fit-for-purpose in the GLAM sector’s digital sphere.
On capacity-building, we’ll work to transform a diverse range of institutions and move them from closed to open, thanks notably to our GLAM Certificate and suite of training and consulting activities. We’ll do our best to make sure institutions are well informed and skillfully equipped at every stage of their openness journey — speaking of, have you had the chance to listen to our podcast with Effie Kapsalis, Senior Digital Program Officer, Smithsonian?
On community engagement, we’ll support, empower and contribute to building resilience in the open GLAM community and open movement. In particular, we’ll provide a platform to unlock the GLAM sector’s potential to create a fairer and more equitable world and continue to support the OpenGLAM initiative.
Want to know more? Do reach out —> info@creativecommons.org
We are currently recruiting a GLAM manager to grow our team. Could that be you? Apply!
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I’m deeply interested in the ways technology impacts the world. My work includes building digital technology platforms as well as teaching about them as a part-time lecturer in digital technologies at Loughborough University in London. I’m also interested in exploring different ways of creating and sharing knowledge. Over the years (my first open source contribution was last century!) I’ve been involved in various open knowledge projects and have been a member of the Creative Commons community for over a decade. This Working Group intersects with many areas of my professional and personal interests and I’m very excited to be leading it. I’m particularly grateful for the opportunity to work with the members of the group and eager to see how their ideas and contributions to the WG’s topics will develop. As well as authoring the position paper, we’re aiming to create a wider set of resources related to the topics we’ll be exploring. These will include the use of CC/openly licensed material in training AI, the copyrightability of algorithmically generated content, and more. Our hope, and goal, is that the community will find these resources useful to learn from, build on, and contribute to.
I’m a doctoral researcher at a prominent Belgian institute, working at the intersection of freedom of expression and thought and technology. I hold law degrees both from Turkey and the US. I also had a chance to work for the Wikimedia Foundation as a legal fellow for a while. Working for the WMF further ignited my passion for the access to information and open knowledge movement. As my doctoral research also aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis on how platform liabilities affect freedom of expression and thought, it is quite intriguing for me to lead this working group. I anticipate that this WG’s policy recommendations will add another invaluable resource to the open movement literature by explaining how platform copyright liability legislation intentionally or unintentionally chills the right to freedom to share, especially concerning open licenses, such as CC licenses. I’m honored to be a part of this great WG, which has members joining from different parts of the world with rich and valuable experiences.
I am a researcher at InternetLab, a Brazilian independent research center focused on internet policy and an institutional member of the Creative Commons Global Network. I am currently a master’s student at the University of São Paulo, where I studied law. My research is focused on copyright reform at the Brazilian national level. I am especially interested in studying how interest groups try to influence Congress into importing foreign copyright legislation. I was attracted to lead this Working Group because I believe exceptions and limitations can serve as important instruments for promoting access to knowledge and culture worldwide. At a global level, they can help us achieve a more just society, one in which access to the world’s intellectual creations and knowledge is not contingent on wealth or nationality. I hope our WG will help Creative Commons in setting up references on how exceptions and limitations can be drafted so as to achieve this goal. 
I am an internationally recognized engineer and activist with extensive experience in the open source commons. I am best known as the creator of Contributor Covenant, the first and most widely adopted code of conduct for open source communities. In 2019 I authored the Hippocratic License, one of the most well-known examples of the emerging body of Ethical Source licenses. I am the co-founder and executive director of the Organization for Ethical Source, a global volunteer-driven community promoting fair, ethical, and sustainable outcomes in open source. I am thrilled to lead this multidisciplinary working group, not only to help Creative Commons responsibly promote open sharing, but also to foster collaboration with leaders of other digital commons communities. 